One of the most common colonial narratives about our modern history is the claim that present-day Afghanistan survived and secured its existence in the late nineteenth century solely through British subsidies. This narrative is not merely a historical error; it is a political instrument that has been used and continues to be used to downplay the Afghan people’s capacity for state-building, economic self-sufficiency, and political independence.
Unfortunately, this narrative has not remained confined to the writings of colonial authors. Some Afghans have also repeated it without serious questioning or investigation. As a result, an image has been implanted in the minds of younger generations suggesting that Afghanistan has never stood on its own feet throughout its history and has always depended on foreign powers. Within this myth, all credit for the survival of the Afghan state is attributed to the subsidies that certain Afghan rulers received from British India. It creates the impression that Afghanistan’s emirs and rulers possessed neither competence nor talent, that Britain paid for their food, clothing, courts, armies, and expenses, and that Afghanistan itself contributed nothing of value or significance.
The greatest flaw in this narrative is that it ignores the long historical continuity of Afghan state-building. Long before the arrival of the British to India, Afghanistan was the center of the Durrani Empire. When Ahmad Shah Baba founded Afghanistan in 1747, the state’s financial resources were generated from within the country itself. Taxes, commercial revenues, agricultural production, and the traditional fiscal system formed the backbone of the Durrani state. During the reign of Timur Shah, the state likewise operated on the basis of its own internal resources. The history of the early decades of Durrani rule clearly demonstrates that Afghanistan emerged as an independent and financially self-sustaining empire, not as a polity maintained by the aid of a foreign power.
However, the political landscape of the region began to change during the first half of the nineteenth century. British colonial rule, having consolidated its power in India, sought new ways to intervene in Afghan affairs. Alongside military invasions, economic pressure became an integral part of this strategy. Afghanistan’s historic trade routes, which connected the country to the wider region and the world through Gandamak, Torkham, and southern corridors, came under increasing restriction and pressure. These obstacles were not merely barriers to commerce; they also affected the revenues of the Afghan state.
These conditions compelled Afghan leaders of the time to seek new methods of organizing and centralizing their financial resources. The process of revenue centralization began during the second phase of Amir Dost Mohammad Khan’s rule, expanded under Amir Sher Ali Khan, and took on a fully formalized and systematic character during the reign of Amir Abdur Rahman Khan. This was a natural and indigenous effort to strengthen and preserve a state that faced foreign pressure and restrictions while seeking to bring its finances under the authority of a centralized administration.
For this reason, when examining the revenues of Amir Abdur Rahman Khan’s era, they should be understood as the outcome of a long historical process, not as the product of British subsidies.
Why does the colonial narrative place so much emphasis on subsidies?
Because colonialism has always sought to diminish the independent will and capabilities of nations. When a people build a state, organize an army, strengthen institutions, and preserve their political existence, the colonial mindset attempts to portray all of these achievements as the result of some external power.
According to this logic, if Afghanistan resists, it is said to have resisted with someone else’s support; if it builds a state, it is said to have done so with someone else’s money; and if it preserves its independence, it is said to have done so only because someone else allowed it.
Britain did not provide these subsidies to Afghanistan out of charity. They were part of strategic calculations. The British Empire sought to contain the expansion of Tsarist Russia. To achieve that objective, it maintained relations with Kabul and offered financial concessions.
Different figures have been cited regarding the revenues of the Afghan state during that period, but even conservative estimates place the annual revenues of Amir Abdur Rahman Khan’s government at around 50 million rupees, while British annual subsidies amounted to roughly one million rupees. This comparison clearly demonstrates that the state’s primary financial foundation rested on domestic revenues, while British subsidies accounted for only about two percent of Afghanistan’s annual income. Such a figure does not prove that the entire existence of the Afghan state depended on that particular concession.
If Afghanistan had truly stood only on British subsidies, then why was Britain unable to turn it into a colony like India? Why could it not impose its institutions and laws upon Afghanistan? Why were decisions made in Kabul rather than in London? The answer is simple: Afghanistan possessed an independent political existence.
There is another important factor behind the persistence and strength of this colonial narrative. After the 1950s, as formerly colonized nations across Asia, Africa, and Latin America began revisiting their histories and developing anti-colonial narratives, colonial powers intensified their own propaganda. They sought to create the impression that it was their rule, investment, and administration that had enabled these nations to survive and function. According to this line of reasoning, without colonialism those nations would have possessed neither a state, nor an economy, nor a future.
The same mindset was applied to Afghanistan. Colonial writers and their intellectual followers attempted to convince Afghans that their state rested not on the foundations of its land and people, but on the shoulders of the British treasury.
The writers employed by colonial establishments do not present a precise picture of historical reality. Instead, they often judge earlier periods through concepts borrowed from contemporary politics and today’s international economic relationships. In the modern international system, a “dependent state” is generally understood as one whose budget relies heavily on foreign aid and international loans. This system of dependency is a product of the twentieth- and twenty-first-century global economy; it is not an accurate description of our historical fiscal and economic realities.
Because history tells a different story.
History tells us that Afghanistan possessed the financial foundations of statehood from the time of Ahmad Shah Durani. History tells us that the Afghan state implemented reforms to organize its resources in the face of external pressure. History tells us that the Afghan people paid taxes, cultivated the land, engaged in trade, and financed their state. And history tells us that foreign powers came and went, but Afghanistan endured.
The principal lesson for the younger generation is not that our forefathers were without flaws. The real lesson is that they possessed a sense of ownership over their destiny. They understood that the source of the state was Kabul, not London; the nation, not the empire; the people, not colonialism.
A nation that merely repeats other people’s narratives about its history will also wait for others to decide its future. But a nation that reads its history through its own understanding, its own standards, and its own confidence acquires the courage to shape its own future.
That courage must be the foundation of Afghanistan’s future politics.
By: Dr. Fazel Mahmood Fazly